The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1926. THE COAL STRIKE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 1 September 1926, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1926. THE COAL STRIKE.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Maaaia, Nonna nby, Okaiawa, Eltbam, Mangatoki. Kaponga, Alton, ITurleyville, I’abea, VVaverley Jtolcoia, Whakaniara, Ohangai, Meremere,. Eraser Road and Ararata.

Summer-time is striking time. If we bear that in mind, and remember, too, that Great Britain is already moving into autumn, the apparent impending collapse of the coal strike, will cause no surprise. The miners at Home have been out of work for four months, tbs warmest and most naturally cheerful four months of the year. / With the approach of the colder season, with its discomforts and added expense to housewaves, signs of wavering were to be expected in the attitude of even the diehard strikers; and if seems certain that, if the dispute is not formally settled very soon—as to-day’s cablegrams suggest it may be—the men will resume work in defiance of their union leaders. The pity is thaf they have been idle so long, for none of them can have been receiving from strike pay moTe than a bare subsistence dole, and the loss of four months’ wages is a serious matter to any working man. The lot of the coal miner is not an enviable one at the best of times, and there is no doubt that the men are entitled to benefit by the drastic overhaul of which the industry has been shown. to be in su(?h pressing need; but strikes are second only to w r ar as instruments of economic wastefulness, and the failure of the present stoppage to achieve any of its objects is but another in the long line of lessons which ought to be teaching the British workman that he has been looking down the long lane in his search for industrial Utopia. It would be unfair —because untrue —to say that the whole fault has beeu, or is, on the employees ’ side. British coal owners are equally blameworthy, equally blind to the teachings of competing nations, notably the United States. Both sides have been content to hold back in the hope of Government action to bolster up the industry. Because coal means so much to the nation, there has been a feeling that the nation should accept responsibility for the untroubled prosecution of the industry. It is the typical British policy—lean, lean and keep on leaning—but the sooner the colossal folly of the whole thing is forced homo to those engaged in the coal-mining business, the better it will .be for them and for everyone else. If necessary, the Government should not hesitate to toll the industry its duty in the matter of reorganisation, might, indeed-, offer assistance in that task; but there can be no more feeding with a silver spoon, and the sooner that is made plain to the contending parties—the sooner they realise that the subsidy is done for all time—the sooner will there be a resumption of work and of negotiations for reorganising the mines. Reorganisation will not be a painless process, and its immediate effect will doubtless be to increase unemployment,

for the mining industry is over-manned. Between .1905 and 1924 the number of men employed increased by 45 per cent., while the output advanced by only 15 per cent. The increase was largely of unskilled men, actual hewers of coal being more in .1924 by 27 per cent. only. It is estimated that, of recent years, a tenth of the population of Great Britain has been directly dependent on coal for its living, and it has been proved impossible for the industry to sustain that burden. Effective reorganisation will weed out large numbers of these unskilled workmen, who must be provided for in some other way to avert unemployment in the country. Mr Vernon Hartshorn, a mining member of the House of Commons, has computed that no less than twenty per cent, of the present collieries are wholly inefficient and should be closed, while other forty per cent, can be made properly efficient only by very drastic, overhaul. It is obvious that the reorganisation shoe will pinch at first—but, once fitted, it will leave the industry properly shod for the race with competing countries. And, with the coal mines fully employed and prosperous, British industry as, a whole may be expected to take on a now lease of life, so that the unemployment incidental to the first improvement may be swallowed up in the development of the second.